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Nice. Its disturbing to see that the TSA is still behind the curve. Honestly, I am surprised that TSA did not ban underpants after the last idiot that tried to smuggle a bomb in his shorts and if they ban Wi-Fi., that is the only thing that makes cross country flights tolerable these days, especially in coach.

What is it going to take for us to realize that the TSA is simply not effective? All this reactionary effort is not helping us to be competitive in the business space and the costs are not insubstantial. My last flight on Thursday to San Jose got me a grope by the TSA agents who now apparently are permitted to do full on frisk-downs. What's next, squat and cough?

Airport security in Canada is relatively consistent and extremely polite. However your plan still involves crossing the US border so expect large delays when entering the US by car only now with the added fun that they have a car to search. In addition there is an entry fee for the US if you are not US or Canadian so you will have to get out of your car and have your fingerprints and photo taken after which you'll get charged for the privilege. Sadly travel to the US via any means has become so unpleasant

They're not going to ban WiFi. The airlines make too much money from it and will raise a storm if it goes away. The airlines only have a certian level of tolerance for these things, especially if it costs them money and inconviences business travellers.

The TSA is however quite effective. It's one of the more creative, pervasive, improve theatre groups that ever put to the non-traditional stage.

The airlines lose money with every new silly TSA regulation because it makes it more and more unpleasant to fly. Because of this, airlines have to cut costs to remain profitable which results in worse service which results in less people wanting to fly then the TSA comes up with a silly new regulation which makes it even more unpleasant to fly, and it goes on and on.

Look at the positive end result, though: Eventually flights will be so expensive and unpleasant that only terrorists will fly on them, and then we can simply reroute all flights to go to a federal prison or internment camp.

Yeah, I really HATE flying these days, my lady friend badgered and bullied me into taking a trip with her to Hawaii (I REALLY HATE HAWAII) I was taken by wheelchair to the security area where I was frisked, wiped with swabs (they even wiped the airports own wheelchair) before being pushed the rest of the way to the gate. On my return flight it was the same, they even opened my suitcase and left a card inside saying they had done so!

OK, a 68 year old white American disabled Vietnam Vet, with a 50 year old Hawaiian wife, traveling on a domestic flight has to go through all this BULLSHIT, while everybody knows that TERRORISTS aren't elderly white cripples!

Kinda makes you think that they really don't want people to travel by air, don't it?

I have a higher security clearance than the guards who are checking me out. Come on guys, [agency] was checking me out for [x] months. They talked to my neighbours and landlords and every employer I've had for the last [x] years. You're looking at my laundry.

Can't seem to find the article, but I recall an elderly lady in a wheelchair in Cheyenne that was searched by TSA and she had copius amounts of ganja (or maybe something else, don't recall) stuffed inside her chair.

Thank you for your service to our country, but I'm sorry, don't expect any sympathy or exemptions just because you were uncomfortable with the screening process. We're all in the same boat.

My last flight on Thursday to San Jose got me a grope by the TSA agents who now apparently are permitted to do full on frisk-downs

They weren't allowed to do that until the full body scanners came into the scene. Now they are doing that to the people who opt-out, presumably on the theory that by making the opt-out extremely unpleasant they can discourage people from exercising it.

Personally, if I'm ever forced to fly again (+1 on the suggestion to just drive) I plan on raising my voice a few octaves, adding a lisp and doing my best Mr. Slave impression. "Oh, Jesus, Jesus Christ!"

How long before the "terrorists" simply start blowing up airports? Why go through the trouble of sneaking something onto a plane. You will yield much larger kill numbers blowing up entire terminals. After all, the objective isn't blowing up planes, it's killing people. Planes just make it more spectacular.

Even ignoring the fact that you are just begging for a "correlation is not causation" lecture, when was the last time you heard about a successfully thwarted attempt? You offer lack of evidence to the contrary as proof, which is utterly absurd.

What is it about entering a plane (which, as we've seen, could potentially be used to cause great harm) do you think entitles you to more personal freedom than entering a venue for a concert or a sporting event?

I've never had someone do a full body X-ray when entering a concert or sporting event, nor have I been frisked. What is it about entering a plane (which, due to changes in cockpit door construction, can no longer feasibly be used to do great harm unless the terrorist has a pilot's license) that you think requires so much less personal freedom than any other location with a comparable number of people?

...when was the last time you heard about a successfully thwarted attempt? You offer lack of evidence to the contrary as proof, which is utterly absurd.

While I agree with your points I think the real issue here is the definition of "effective". In this context it does not simply mean stopping terrorist acts it means stopping them with minimal impact to air travel. After all you could stop all terrorist attacks on planes by banning all commercial air travel - but this is hardly an effective solution. The reason that TSA are ineffective is that they cause a massive inconvenience for travellers and, of all the terrorist plots caught, none (to my knowledge) have been caught by their security measures and all have been caught by better intelligence. This is clear evidence that intelligence is the most effective way to solve the problem since it has close to zero impact on the traveller and has been shown to work.

I didn't offer ANYTHING as proof; in fact, I didn't even argue the OP's point.

Your statement implied that evidence is required to show that the TSA is not improving things. I would argue that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and in the absence of evidence that they are actually improving things, the default assumption should be that they are not.

Wonderful. I've never had someone do a full body X-ray at an airport...

You haven't flown in the past six months, have you? Merry Christmas.

What do you do when there is increased risk? You mitigate it.

So why haven't we done so? Bomb sniffing dogs at every airport? Solid cockpit doors with a proper airlock design (two sets of doors that aren't open at once)? Background checks on passengers? Interviews for non-regular travelers a la Israeli airlines? Instead of mitigating the risk, we've invested billions of dollars in high tech toys that don't work.

The TSA is likely made up of your standard government agency moron just like all the rest of them. But complaining that you can't bring your printer cartridges, and acting like no more wifi on planes is the end of the world is just plain stupid. In review: a guy made a bomb out of a printer cartridge. What would YOU do?

Absolutely nothing. Sometimes the correct response is to not respond, and a prima facie absurd response is always worse than none at all because it just makes you look incompetent. These things were not in carry-on bags, but rather in air cargo (mail or package delivery, I forget which). Odds are good that someone would get a lot of scrutiny if someone had carried a laser printer on board an airplane, making it a very unlikely vector of attack. Not to mention that you'd get close scrutiny if you attempted to take a laser printer down from the overhead compartment during the flight, since there's no feasible way to use one in flight. Also, printer bits were likely chosen because they were large enough to hide enough explosives; anything of similar size could be used just as easily, making the particular object of little consequence. All these factors point towards a single conclusion: that the right answer is to not do anything.

That said, if you really want to do something, then require that printer cartridges be taken out and swabbed appropriately. If the powder is harmful, then it doesn't fly, but if it's just a printer cartridge as one would expect 99.999% of the time, it isn't doing any harm.

Your right to carry on dangerous weapons that I can't reasonably escape from is terminated if you want to ride along

If "dangerous weapons" had been allowed to law-abiding citizens 9/11 would never have happened. Food for thought. We surrendered our 2nd amendment rights and 3,000 people died. Now you think that surrendering our 4th amendment rights are the answer?

Your nickname is telling. How'd you wind up on my friends list anyway if you are that much of a sheep?

Judging by how many bullets I've had fly by my head, not to mention how many targets I've seen with nothing behind them to stop bullets, I'd imagine allowing personal weapons on planes would result in a lot more deaths then the terrorists can dream off.

To be fair, a lot of the chatter on terrorism in the last 5 years or so has been of the domestic nature. The thinking has been that disgruntled former military and LEO's possess training, probably equipment, and have already secured entry into the country. Add in a dash of motivation and you've got a recipe for a very credible threat.

OTOH credible threats from outside the US are few and far between. The one guy in recent memory that actually succeeded in smuggling equipment onto an airplane only really s

The approach comes dangerously close to a self-fulfilling prophecy. You're talking about profiling people who are already on edge and classing them as enemies-of-the-state to be harassed, obstructed, and potentially arrested based on hearsay or potential. If somebody expects that they are now going to be harassed or even arrested for merely holding an opinion, that may be all the catalyst they need to go over the edge since it's essentially the same either way. If you're going to be treated like a second class citizen or even a criminal whether you act or not, why not act? It decreases the psycho-social barriers and actually encourages rather the discourages the profiled behavior.

Exactly. You think that's not intentional? This is 100% identical to the Westboro people inciting violence against gays and claiming that they are justified in doing so because "gays are violent". They then picket funerals and say the most hateful things in the hope they will be attacked and thus get everything they want.

The TSA is just hoping someone will put the smackdown on one of their expendable minimum-wage immune-to-prosecution "law enforcement officials" as an excuse to create internal passports a la Apartheid-era South Africa. You just know they're drooling over that prospect.

My own answer is to fly myself. It's a bit more expensive and slower, but no TSA jackboot can tell me I can't do it. The FAA issued my pilot's license, and ONLY the FAA can revoke it. The TSA can go pound sand; I'll just walk to the other side of the airport and go general aviation. Yeah, this isn't a solution open to everyone, but there's no single solution short of the disbandment of the TSA that will be universal. Fly yourself, drive, take a train (until the TSA claims they own trains too), don't travel, sue, vote Libertarian, do SOMETHING to lawfully resist. And let the airlines know. Airlines have more ability to resist the conversion of the TSA into the KGB than an individual, but individuals have power over the airline's most precious resource: income.

If it makes you feel better, you can keep playing this game. Or, alternatively, you could just man-up and accept that there will be some risks if you don't live in a shell and let yourself be terrorized.

You're solution involves people growing a spine and/or recognizing reality. Which judging from the fact that the voters decided to promote bipartisanship by giving the GOP a majority in the house is pretty clearly out of the question.

...are you really happy with the way that President Obama is handling this issue? His Administration hasn't done jack-shit to halt the growth of the security theater industry.

As a leftie, I have to say that I am dismayed at the rapid disintegration of our individual liberties and freedoms since President Obama came to office, and at the utter lack of discipline of the rest of the party, causing the recent realignment of the House.

The checks seem to keep getting written to the TSA and the companies that supply them with their toys (Smiths, etc.) and there is no end in sight. The Democrats have not made any positive moves in this regard, and seem to rank individual liberties (such as being able to carry my fucking Starbucks through security) below pandering to the fear filled right and left. It all sucks.

The reality, as it has already been stated above, is that passengers now know that their own security is in their hands, and given the proclivity of the average American to "throw down" for very little reason, I feel pretty damn safe on an aircraft, and not an iota of that feeling comes from the TSA.

See, this is why I love the Tea Party approach. Given sufficient cuts in funding, all of this nonsense would dry up and blow away. The only reason we're saddled with all this security theater is because there are contractors who want our tax dollars. If there weren't anyone trying to sell us body scanners, remodel our airports, and otherwise siphon off our cash, we'd wouldn't be bothering with it.

But tea partiers don't want the TSA to go away. They fear those horrible mooslims. They want social security and universal healthcare, and state sponsored education to meet the chopping block first, because they're convinced that's the problem. Cutting funding for the TSA or DOD would be sacrilege.

If it makes you feel better, you can keep playing this game. Or, alternatively, you could just man-up and accept that there will be some risks if you don't live in a shell and let yourself be terrorized.

I think most (not all, just most) people accept that. I think even most government officials accept that. What nobody accepts is the blame they would get if something goes wrong and they didn't do as much as they possibly could to appear to have tried to prevent that. That's what's driving all this: people in positions of responsibility have an extremely high incentive to propose anything they can think of to reduce their exposure to risk, even if what they're proposing is unethical, immoral, and unconstitutional, because it's what stands between their current lives and being on the front page when the next nogoodnik blows something up. They, individually, see an extremely small cost to reducing our civil liberties compared to the benefit they get from doing so, and as such it is an entirely rational behavior for them to try to pass laws and regulations against everything. So how do we, as a culture, try to fix this?

If it makes you feel better, you can keep playing this game. Or, alternatively, you could just man-up and accept that there will be some risks if you don't live in a shell and let yourself be terrorized.

While I generally agree with this, I would like to reflect about how difficult is to find the middle ground... From the Wi-Fi article (emphasis mine):

These systems would mean that passengers would no longer need to illicitly use their cellphones when they come into range of ground masts at low altitudes near airports – a potentially dangerous activity that could interfere with the aircraft's avionics

I mean, WTF? WHO IN THE HELL NEEDS TO USE A CELL PHONE IN A PLANE? Anyone who breaches air security rules because he can't stand a few hours without phone or internet is sick or a moron, or both. Ok, if you can have it, you may enjoy it more than reading, watching a film, sleeping or just thinking. If it is safely available and you don't disturb me, enjoy it.

Oh good! I was wondering when the season premier for Homeland Security Theater was going to be broadcast. This is yet!

In this episode, the knee-jerk reaction is to ban toner and ink cartridges, because like bottled water and cola, some Macgyver type will be able to whip together a fusion bomb in those few hours of flying, without anyone noticing!

Yet another ban for show rather than actual security. How about, gee, I dunno, profiling passengers? You know, be politically incorrect and actually practice forensic science for a change, and stop harassing and inconveniencing the rest of us?

How about, gee, I dunno, accepting that terrorists are going to do shitty things, like blow up planes, blow up cars, etc? Then terrorists' main weapon, terror (and its cousin, irrational fear), will be gone. Sure, that'll just mean terrorists will try to come up with different things to terrorize people.

But, it's the same thing with shock jocks, blathering political pundits, more "extreme" violent films and sexualized porn, etc: if you stop reacting, you'll s

Yet another ban for show rather than actual security. How about, gee, I dunno, profiling passengers? You know, be politically incorrect and actually practice forensic science for a change, and stop harassing and inconveniencing the rest of us?

Profiling passengers doesn't work, either: most of the passengers who fit broad profiles (like race) are perfectly innocent, and focusing on those passengers means focusing less on the rest, creating potential holes in your security.

Oh good! I was wondering when the season premier for Homeland Security Theater was going to be broadcast. This is yet!

In this episode, the knee-jerk reaction is to ban toner and ink cartridges, because like bottled water and cola, some Macgyver type will be able to whip together a fusion bomb in those few hours of flying, without anyone noticing!

Yet another ban for show rather than actual security. How about, gee, I dunno, profiling passengers? You know, be politically incorrect and actually practice forensic science for a change, and stop harassing and inconveniencing the rest of us?

Israel security is serious security, and not theatre, because it concentrates on the passenger, and not their belongings. When a simple pen can be wielded as a weapon in the right hands (or part of a set of eyeglasses, for that matter, or a screwdriver, or a knife from first class sharpened with a completely inconspicuous sharpening stone) it becomes clear that the belongings carried with a person do not matter nearly as much as the person and their intent. Reading intent can be done. The Israelis do it very, very well. Exceedingly well, actually, as anyone who has flown out of Tel Aviv can relate, especially if they were paying attention.

I am a scientist, one of the very few professions accorded a kind of informal diplomatic special status (when two states are leaning toward establishing diplomatic ties, they typically start with artistic and scientific exchanges). I was given what felt like the third degree when leaving Tel Aviv:

"Why were you in Israel?"
"I am a scientist, and I was invited to give a lecture."
(looking me up and down:) "You were invited to give a lecture?"
"Yes."
(icy tone) "Why would they invite *you*?"
"Because there was an international seminar in my field, and I do good work."
(continued icily) "Oh, really. Do you have a letter of invitation?"
"Yes, here it is."
"Do you have the program from the seminar?"
"Yes, here."
(getting accusitive) "Why can't I find your name?"
"Um, it's... just a mintute... here it is."
"What was the topic of your lecture?"
"Computational Neuroscience."
(pointedly) "Please give us the lecture."
"I'm sorry, what?"
(same inflection) "Please give us the lecture."
"OK... " (I start the lecture and am allowed to get quite a few sentences in to it before I'm stopped; they were in fact paying attention to what I was saying, although not distinctly interested in the content.)
"Where did you pack your bags?"

and so on for ten minutes. They wanted to know where I stayed, how I knew about that particular hotel, where I went during my free time, etc. When speaking with other travellers, I've since learned that's pretty standard. Did you notice above when I wrote about paying attention? There were two interrogators performing the interview for each passenger. One doing the talking, and one observing. The one talking said that she was a trainee, and that's why there were two. I've since learned that's standard operating procedure: it works to make the interviewee think of the interviewer in sympathetic light. Damned skilled.

That, my friends, is security. Banning containers of liquid or gel larger than 125 mL isn't. Hiding one's thoughts from skilled interrogation is much, much harder to do than hiding physical contraband.

Yes, it is, and frankly, young Middle Eastern men have damned good reason to be nervous at a security checkpoint.

Or, as happened to my friend Kamal a few years ago, merely being of Middle-Eastern complexion was enough to get him hassled every day on the way into the subway station to get to work. Never mind that he was a typical middle-class American kid with Indian parents, born and raised in New Jersey and putting himself through college in a used bookstore.

That's ridiculous. We should only treat young Middle Easteners like criminals. </sarcasm>

The quickest path towards resolving this is genuinely for all non-criminal young Middle Easterners to start ejecting the radical element from within their ranks. The next time one of your peers tells you how evil all those white infidels are, tell him to shut the hell up, to grow up, and step away from the radical idiot who cares less for their life than for his own ego. End the war from within, and see those who fear you turn into your supporters.

Where was it suggested that racial profiling be used? Israel has had great success with passenger profiling, and there's a whole lot more to it than skin color.

Unfortunately you need trained and intelligent security agents to make it work, something we're never likely to be able to commit to. Cheap, poorly-trained TSA agents frisking people down looks more impressive to travelers than a couple relatively-expensive guys highly trained in interrogation techniques and reading facial expressions.

Israel also had locked cockpit doors back in the 1980s and armed members of law enforcement and/or the military on every flight. Amazingly enough they have managed to secure their airlines without banning bottled water and groping genitalia....

Because profiling separates the security line into an "easy" line and a "hard" line, and so the terrorists will just use the "easy" line (by, e.g. hiding the bombs in some white grandmother's wheelchair because you decided not to check them as much as that group of Sikhs that you thought were "teh muslin terrorists!")

Clearly the answer is to ban the thing the bomb came in and search those things because we all know that everything is going to be the exact same and its going to make us be safer! Whats next? Someone tries to put some explosives in gum therefore we ban gum while ignoring everything else?

Its becoming increasingly obvious that the TSA is designed to cripple airlines, make comfortable travel nearly impossible, violate privacy all the while doing nothing to stop a real terrorist plot.

The official announcement is still light on details, but the ban will apply to both carry-on and checked luggage and will affect "domestic and international flights in-bound to the United States." Apparently ink and toner will still be allowed on flights out-bound from the United States.

The distinction between domestic flights and out-bound international flights makes no sense to me. If someone can target a domestic flight by assembling the toner-bomb in the US, why couldn't the same person target an international flight out-bound from the US?

Furthermore, is there any evidence that a toner cartridge and printer were selected for any particular reason? Is there any reason toner cartridges make for a particularly attractive bomb container? If not, this seems worse than useless, since an attacker would simply select a different container while the screeners are busy looking for toner cartridges.

Apparently ink and toner will still be allowed on flights out-bound from the United States. The distinction between domestic flights and out-bound international flights makes no sense to me. If someone can target a domestic flight by assembling the toner-bomb in the US, why couldn't the same person target an international flight out-bound from the US?

The terrorists keep winning. I'm pretty sure we've done just about all we can do to protect ourselves without severely impeding our basic rights. Locking the cockpit with a bullet-resistant door and only allowing passengers to the gate (after screening) ensures we'll never have a 9/11-type attack again. Everything else is just really making flying annoying and more and more cost/time prohibitive. Basically, they keep winning despite not killing anyone.

It's not diminishing returns for TSA though. Every time a terrorist plot is uncovered they need to do -something- to make it look like they're doing something real. The reality is that if someone is determined enough and not a goddamn idiot, they are going to be able to bring down a plane. Fortunately, the terrorists are idiots for now, but if most people realized how ineffective TSA was, we'd cut their funding dramatically and fire most of them.

Security theater actually works quite well for the actors and a gullible audience, though it does very little towards actually security.

I thought the bombs were on cargo/commercial (FedEx or UPS) planes, not passenger aircraft. If so, why are we (again) punishing the passengers for no apparent reason? Haven't we annoyed and inconvenienced the flying public enough already?

I'm far more concerned about TSA's new pat-down procedure [crunchgear.com] than I am about not being allowed to bring toner with me on a plane. Not that the ink/toner cartridge ban makes much sense, but how often do you bring printer supplies with you on a plane?

As someone who has worked in the world's busiest airport during the world's busiest travel times over the past 5 years, every time I see the TSA ban stuff like this or add a new level of security it just makes me shake my head. You know the old saying about locking the barn door after the horse escapes? That doesn't fully capture it. This is more like locking the barn door after the horse escapes through the giant fucking hole in the middle of the barn wall. It does nothing to help what already happened and isn't going to solve the original problem at all.

Let's just cut to the chase and ban people from airplanes. Every single terrorist plot involving hijacking or detonating an explosive aboard an airplane involved at least one person. By completely banning people from flights, it will make air travel completely safe. This has the added benefit of allowing the TSA enough time to give everyone a full-cavity search since they no longer have to worry about being able to depart on time. After all, you never know where those terrorists might hide their explosives. Of course to do all of this in a timely manner, we'll need to double the number of TSA security personnel, but it's probably worth the extra hundred dollars just to know that the flight you can't take is completely safe from terrorists. Can't put a price on piece of mind after all.

What I don't understand about the screaming to ban deadly packages flying by air mail is that for literally 100 YEARS letter bombs have been on the scene. I myself was in Washington DC in about 1975 when a letter bomb posted by the IRA was delivered to the British Embassy. It blew the hand off a secretary who opened it up. Yes, there was an investigation, the police were called, the IRA condemned etc. etc. but nobody suggested banning packages in the mail or removing the rights of anyone who went into a post office. Heck, these devices from Yemen didn't even explode and we're falling apart with fear!

What the hell is going on? Why has the US become a nation of panty-wetting idiots?

Because people are fundamentally unforgivable cowards, and much worse, so goddamned gullible that they actually believe the government can keep them safe in the absolute or near-absolute sense of the word. We in the West all talk the Big Talk about how liberty is worth the risks (and indeed, even at this time of year in many places recount how hundreds of thousands of soldiers went off to fight a couple of world wars to stop totalitarian regimes from making us all Very Safe), but no one really means it.

Well, at least to the credit of those trying to protect air travel - It takes a lot less effort to severely damage an airplane at altitude (thanks to the stresses of a pressurized cabin) to the point where it will not fly than it does to damage a ship or train to the point where it causes massive loss of life. (Although due to derailment, a train is probably easier.)

So a small bomb can take down a plane, but can't necessarily take out a ship or train, especially if in a cargo area.

People are making a lot of money off the fear industry. Chertoff, the former head of Homland Security, is a consultant for one or more of the companies that make the bomb detection and body scanning equipment that the TSA is mandating be used

Yes. It's a consequence of the way we've been brought up, protected from everything bad and even bad thoughts, so once something does actually enter our consciousness it consumes everything. Like someone who's lived in a bubble away from all germs all of a sudden meeting the common cold.

I agree with most of your sentiment, but let's not forget that these bombs were defused minutes before going off, only thanks to a tip-off by a repentant Al-Qaida operative. And each of these devices had enough explosive to significantly damage the fuselage of the aircraft. This one was a close, scary shave.

how they did it. I work with diesel fuel systems. If I need to send a failed fuel pump back to the factory in Germany, it has to go by boat. The tiny amount of fuel still left in the pump after it is cleaned will get detected, and I will get a friendly visit from law enforcement if I try to send it by plane.

They used one of the component explosive (PETN) in SEMTEX [wikipedia.org].

Developed in the USSR, SEMTEX was seen as highly dangerous (and liked by terrorists) because it nearly impossible to detect. So hard to detect, that nowadays SEMTEX actually has stuff added to it so it can be detected more easily and it's export and use is highly restricted (presumably why these guys decided not to actually use modern SEMTEX).

Terrorist: "Well, I had this fancy bomb all put together and I was ready to blow myself and 200 other people out of the sky, but then the damned TSA went and made it illegal to do that. Since I have an instinctive need to obey the laws of the infidels, I suppose my plan is right out the window. Oh well. I guess I'll just walk down to the donut shop and gorge myself. Maybe I'll take up farming. Fava beans, anyone?"

Obviously, these toner cartridges were packed in some sort of suitcase. Imagine that, a closed case on a plane that a terrorist could use to put any kind of horrible device. The only logical reaction is to ban all suitcases. This should also apply to duffle bags, backpacks and other forms of closed containers. Travellers will be encouraged to carry their clothes in big piles to the check in area where they will be looked through (and any funny underwear will be lifted up high for everyone to laugh at). Then, the whole pile will be shovelled onto the airplane. Luggage pickup areas will now have a dump truck back up to them and dump the cargo bin's contents onto the ground for traveller's to fight through. Make sure you write your name and address in big letters all over every piece of clothing in permanent ink. And remember, it might be a minor inconvinience but this and other measures like the upcoming "automatic strip searching for hot passengers" rule help keep the skies safe from terrorists.

Nope, you have to fill your empty water bottles with toner powder and the toner carts with water. But the water MUST be purchased after the security line, so only empty, water-tight toner carts are allowed through security.

The whole system is complete bullshit. You want to know why we haven't had any successful terrorist attacks on planes since 9/11? It hasn't been because of these systems it is because people feel threatened and are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent a terrorist or hijacker from carrying out their plots. Before 9/11 you complied with the hijacker, wound up in Cuba and so long as you didn't piss off the hijacker or were really unlucky you made it off alive. Today, people think that they will either go down with the plane exploding or have the plane run into a building.

From what I read, is that the PETN explosive put inside the toner cartridge looks just like toner powder through an X-Ray machine. At least one of these packages was screened through normal processes and was not detected. Another article I read said that the authorities in England couldn't find anything wrong with the printer they were told was a bomb until instructed by authorities in Dubai on what to look for. It sounds like this was an incredibly well-made bomb, and I think it is in part to the fact that

That a pilot who is sympathetic to the cause, couldn't bring weapons through security and pass them off to his co-conspirators so that they could use said weapons on a different plane. It's just unthinkable, and you're a super-genius.